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I'm a bit torn. On one hand I'd like the travel to be automatic (like autopilot) if I'm required to travel. But if it were made interesting sure I would play it.

Thing is, a lot of the time when people talk about world, travel and stuff like that, they are talking about what could happen. However in practice, while something might happen usually nothing happens. So it makes travelling boring and not worth the rare encounters.

De facto and de jure. The main difference in this discussion is about what the games could/should be, and what they actually are.

A lot of mmorpg.com discussions are like that. What we should aspire to, and what we get.

Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.

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The problem is Facebook.

Seriously, if you trace the point in time when this decent -- away from "virtual worlds" into "online console games" -- began, it began precisely around the time of the birth of social networking. This isn't coincidence, social networking altered the soul of the internet and with it online gaming. More specifically, social networking changed the internet from a land of anonymity --where you could be whoever you wanted to be -- to a place where your identity was more permanently attached to you and a heavy bit of baggage than it could ever have been in real life alone. With social networking, the internet ceased to be an alternate reality you used to escaped away from real life . . . and instead became a powerful extension of real life.

The old MMO was built upon the old internet in which anonymity and virtuality were king. Indeed, one could argue that the old MMO was the ultimate expression of the internet, creating worlds of complete fantasy where you were entirely free to become the hero of your dreams without any trace of the real you left over. The worlds developed around that theme, becoming virtual reality in which the persistance of the world and of your character and his/her long -- very long -- journey became not the epic story you get in a couple hours watching a movie, but an epic story that was as epic as if you were actually living it.

But with social networking, the idea of "not being ourselves" while online not only began to fade, but actually began to feel "wrong" in some way, antisocial or dysfunctional even. Being online meant always keeping one foot in the real world, and this foot is always nagging at you, telling you you need to return. Players brought this underlying psychological attitude into their games, and games became less like "alternate realities" and instead more like "distractions". One could only devote so much time to this character or that, this game or that, because ultimately one had to return to the real person behind the keyboard.

As the internet faded from a world of anonymity into an extension of real life, so did online gaming. MMOs were no longer alternatives to real life, they became minor distractions to it, like watching a movie. And what is more, the online gaming community hailed this as a good thing. Accusing someone of gaming too much, "living in your mothers basement," became a way of insulting them. Having a "real life" outside of gaming became the model of the ideal gamer. MMOs became "casual" as we are all familiar with . . . more like console games. The gaming community became more rude and hostile toward one another.

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So we can blame this situation on any news event that took place with coincidental timing then?

Most people just blame everything on Blizzard.

(correlation is not causation--in this case, even the correlation seems dubious)

Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.

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Originally posted by bunnyhopperTravelling through a game world IS interesting to some, if people bothered to actually improve game worlds as opposed to try and remove them, then it would be interesting for far more. There are countless ways to make game worlds more interesting by layering in dynamic pvp and pve events, by layering in game world structure changes. That means the second trip is very different for the first. Just removing features and bypassing the gameworld.. no, not so good.

Travel is shallow you say and adds no depth, but that neglects the fact that it adds depth and gameplay features to a game world which you cannot simply replicate with scripted features. It also neglects the fact that your subjective view as to what shallow gameplay is, doesn't matter at all to those who actually enjoy the act of travelling through a game world.

Maybe you are making the mistake of thinking that virtual worlds and travel through them should be altered to appeal to the hardcore, must bash buttons constantly, must be in an instance constantly crowd. You would be very, very wrong in thinking that.

Travel through a game world improves the experience for plenty of players both directly and indirectly. Hitting buttons for the sake of it does no such thing, and your proposed system certainly doesn't add depth. If you think a scripted minigame is going to add the same depth and freedom as travel through an open world in the case of virtual world games, then that is gobsmacking. Again, feel free to point out these methods in detail.

Once more it seems clear that improving the game world is far superior to removing the game world.

Tic Tac Toe is another experience "interesting to some". But it's obviously not something you'd want to force players to play, because it's super shallow and most people see through it.

If you weren't forced to deal with this game system (travel), it would be fine for it to have the depth of tic tac toe. But because you are forced to engage in a shallow system, that makes it a poor design.

If you weren't forced to deal with this game system (travel), it would be fine for it to have the depth of tic tac toe. But because you are forced to engage in a shallow system, that makes it a poor design.

The whole "forced" argument is a really, really bad one.

Who gets "forced" to play Tic Tac Toe exactly? Who gets "forced" to play a virtual world game with travel in it as opposed to the myriad of games out there both within the mmorpg genre and without it which offer differing gameplay mechanics and styles?

When I want some e-sport pvp I play an e-sport game. When I fancy an open world pvp fest or fancy exploring a game world, I don't still play an e-sport game and moan about the fact that it is "forcing" me to pvp or sit in a lobby.

No one is going around making people play games at gun point, at least not that I am aware of. The idea is that people who want to travel and engage with a virtual world, play such games. If someone would rather have zero travel and is not interested in the mechanics that travel drives, great, go play another game.

Again no, the fact that travel enables deeper gameplay experiences is far from "irrelevant" for the people who, you know, actually enjoy those experiences. Moreover, trying to take travel/the game world out, as opposed to trying to actually improve the game world. Just to appease a crowd completely and utterly against travel in the first place is just total and utter madness.

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Originally posted by Roenick

The real issue is they are taking the MMO out of MMORPG games. No one talks to each other outside of a few instances or if you're lucky enough to be a in a tight knit guild in a game that still has guilds.

We're all now special snowflakes with our own AWESOME epic quest where we're the hero.

Bring back the world where you are just a spec of dust on the large map. Where you could could travel for 20+ mins and not run into a soul till you got to a heavily populated town. That was immersion. Not run to X spot kill 10 run to Y spot kill 10 move to next level/area with harder kill 10 of quests.

And even though I plan to GW2 i sense even with their new appoach to run to X and kill 10...it's still the same ole same ole.

I think people would pay/subscribe to an "old school" type of game with modern graphics, but what developer is going to take that risk?

It's not the MMO that's missing. There are still lots of people and they still talk to each other. It's the RPG that has been phased out. Too many "MMOs" have more in common with league of legends or quake 3 arena than they do with the early MMOs. Like the OP said, it's 100% focused on competitive PvE raiding or esport PvP.

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Originally posted by Mephster

A few companies that come to mind that maybe will kickstart the genre once again. CCP (World of Darkness), Blizzard (Titan) and Undead Labs (Zombie console mmo). These companies will give hope to the genre.

WoD is on a backburner because CCP is making a FPS.

Titan kickstarting the virtual world MMORPG genre? That'd be amazing, but I've been disappointed far too many times in the last 10 years to get my hopes up that it will be anything that pleases us old-schooler, sandbox-wanting MMORPGers.

Zombies are a niche market (well, so is WoD, for that matter), and won't kickstart anything even if the mechanics are perfectly perfect. It's just like Eve. If there were a fantasy version of Eve with more fleshed out PvE, it would be the most amazing MMO ever. But space is a niche market.

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I don't think the genre/industry is dead. I just think it is stale and we are all to lazy to throw it out and make a new loaf.

I agree. It's not dead, it's just incredibly stale. I haven't played an MMORPG in years. What time I do have is mostly going to MMORTSs (AoEO, End of Nations beta). I'd enjoy playing a real MMORPG, but only if they trashed the current model and started over. No more cash shop, no more instanced everything, no more levels and classes, no more endless-grind-for-gear-so-you-can-more-effectively-grind-for-more-gear. I would need to see a real reboot of the genre to be interested.

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Well the problem was 10+ years ago,DSL/Cable was not common place.What happened to this genre was al lthose rich adults that were playing ,now had 10-20 million new kids join the MMO market.

This new wave of gamer that came about the same time Wow was released prefer to solo,which in essence is a total contradiction to the term MMO.

Developers ONLY care about money,so they set out to make games EASIER and soloable,and behold Wow was created.When a developer sees that kind of monetary gain,waht type of game do you think 90% of subsequent developers will design?

Even before Wow,the game it copied for structure was EQ,it WAS the highest sub based game,so gain this whole design structure gave future developers the push in that direction.

I found my own gem in FFXI.The reason it was so much different in it's core design was becuase JPN developers did NOT know or care much about the N.American market.Square Enix gave full credit to another developer for giving them the courage to move into this market.That developer was Capcom.However without prior N.Amerk influences they did not copy but created their OWN game using their OWN culture and mythology.

Now after years of N.Amerk influences we see even Sqaure move more towards a Wow type game with it's DAILIES,a cheap design they would have never used before.

Now my next hopeful game is again an outside the bubble developer from korea[XLGAMES/ArcheAge].Sure NCSOFT has some ties over here NOW,but LIneage 1 the game Jake Song created was predominantly a Korean game with little to no ties over here.Even to this day there are rumblings he may need to change his game a bit to meet N.American needs,it scares me to hear this.Point is this is the type of developer we can expect to see some differences in our games,they are not straight out copy cat Everquest clones.

This genre is not dead,we just need more developers willing to CREATE/Invent without looking over at Wow/Everquest every 2 seconds.

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It's not the MMO that's missing. There are still lots of people and they still talk to each other. It's the RPG that has been phased out. Too many "MMOs" have more in common with league of legends or quake 3 arena than they do with the early MMOs. Like the OP said, it's 100% focused on competitive PvE raiding or esport PvP.

Exactly. Competition, not role-playing, is the currency of online games these days . . . which is a far cry from the cooperative game play of pen-and-paper D&D upon which early games were modeled. Role playing was the heart and soul of role playing games at their conception but they are rapidly become more like sports.

And is it really a surprise that online gaming became like sports when you had so many "jocks" flooding into the market in the latter half of the last decade? In the old days, most "normal" people struggled with the very concept of the internet, nevermind joining a virtual online world. MMOs were a heaven for "geeks" and geek-like people because most people playing them were such; everyone else, gen-X and older, were too intimidated by the very idea . . . and millennials were, of course, too young to play. With time people became comfortable with the internet and online gaming (and the younger generation became a bit older) and so the population that began to flood into the market (and, yes, primarily through WoW) naturally was largely made up of "normal" people -- people whose relationship to games began with sports rather than role playing.

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The market is huge and may still be expanding. Going into a direction you do not like != dead.

In fact, i think it is becoming MORE ALIVE, solving all the old problems (like camping & finding groups with instances & LFD/LFR), while giving a large part of the games to the players for FREE.

It is getting BETTER.

the genre is dead. not the market. the business of taking old console game concepts into the mmo space is huge. the genre that attempted to make virtual worlds is dead.

Yeh. The genre of virtual world is dead. But MMOs are NOT virtual worlds anymore. They are lobby based co-op games .. and this genre is flourishing.

These arent MMORPGs. Why you may ask? Well in your genre no one takes the time to interact with anyone else outside of grouping for the sake of action based play. Quick in and out mini games. Where as with a MMORPG time needs to be taking to develope once character and social intercation with those around you build a "community"

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Originally posted by fischsemmel

Originally posted by Mephster

A few companies that come to mind that maybe will kickstart the genre once again. CCP (World of Darkness), Blizzard (Titan) and Undead Labs (Zombie console mmo). These companies will give hope to the genre.

WoD is on a backburner because CCP is making a FPS.

Titan kickstarting the virtual world MMORPG genre? That'd be amazing, but I've been disappointed far too many times in the last 10 years to get my hopes up that it will be anything that pleases us old-schooler, sandbox-wanting MMORPGers.

Zombies are a niche market (well, so is WoD, for that matter), and won't kickstart anything even if the mechanics are perfectly perfect. It's just like Eve. If there were a fantasy version of Eve with more fleshed out PvE, it would be the most amazing MMO ever. But space is a niche market.

I highly doubt the VW idea is going to make a strong comeback. Just look at what is popular recently. Even Day Z, who is touted as the savior of sandbox gameplay, has like less than 1M active players, and the game is FREE.

Games, similar to MMORPGs, that have really impressive numbers ...

- LOL ... passing WOW with number of players & hours played. True that it is free, but it has numbers order of magnitude bigger than Day Z. And what is it? A lobby-based RTS with heroes.

- Diablo 3 .. sold 10M in less than 3 months (8.8 without annual pass). Fastest selling PC game. And it is $60 a pop. What is it? A lobby based action RPG.

- now we do have minecraft ... but that is a building game, not so much as a adventure RPG type. And minecraft is also quite different than MMORPG .. which you do NOT need to from groups, to fight through an area. In fact, personally, i think D3 has closer gameplay to modern MMORPGs, than minecraft.

- Borderland ... sold 4.5M copies. Combo of RPG, FPS and MP. Small group MP, like D3 but with FPS combat.

And there is also a huge trend in F2P .. so what i see is this:

1) the market is going to be more fragmented with smaller, F2P games.

2) MMOs are going to get featuers & ideas from other genre. I am kind of surprise no one is doing a Borderland with a AH, and some MMO elements, or vice versa.

3) The lines between MMOs, F2P combat games are going to be blur even more. Look at SD Gundam, or DDO .. they are discussed on MMORPG, but all the content is instanced, and SD Gundam does not even has a world.

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100% combat oriented online games. Cash shops come standard. Purely developer driven content. Esport is the name of the game for pvp. Socialization has become automatized.

Yep :(

Yep :)

And Foomerang failed to add .. more diverse game setting. More F2P so there are more games to hop around.

And were wondering why the genre is dying...

i would rather play one game for years then 10 games for A year.

Your have your choice, i have mine. Playing one game for years? It would be boring (for me), even if it is WOW. It is much better to play multiple games, preferably with the same group of friends, but even that, is not so important to me.

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The market is huge and may still be expanding. Going into a direction you do not like != dead.

In fact, i think it is becoming MORE ALIVE, solving all the old problems (like camping & finding groups with instances & LFD/LFR), while giving a large part of the games to the players for FREE.

It is getting BETTER.

the genre is dead. not the market. the business of taking old console game concepts into the mmo space is huge. the genre that attempted to make virtual worlds is dead.

Yeh. The genre of virtual world is dead. But MMOs are NOT virtual worlds anymore. They are lobby based co-op games .. and this genre is flourishing.

These arent MMORPGs. Why you may ask? Well in your genre no one takes the time to interact with anyone else outside of grouping for the sake of action based play. Quick in and out mini games. Where as with a MMORPG time needs to be taking to develope once character and social intercation with those around you build a "community"

Your mistaking MMOs with Online FPSs.

That is just semantics.

"no one takes the time to interact with anyone else outside of grouping for the sake of action based play." .. isn't that true in WOW, DCUO, and quite a few "MMORPGs" that i played recently.

Are you saying those are not MMORPGs anymore? If so, this site should change its name. Player behavior change. Quick in and quick out combat games is the way to go for many. And many play MMOs as such. If it is my preferred fun way to play a MMO, i don't see why i should not ... particularly when MMOs are more and more friendly to this kind of play.

You are mistaken that "MMOs" stay stale and static. Its meaning is changing all the time.

(And where does this FPS thing comes from? You should be using "online action RPG" instead .. and yes, many MMOs are turning into online action RPG .. nothing wrong if that is what the market wants)

The market is huge and may still be expanding. Going into a direction you do not like != dead.

In fact, i think it is becoming MORE ALIVE, solving all the old problems (like camping & finding groups with instances & LFD/LFR), while giving a large part of the games to the players for FREE.

It is getting BETTER.

the genre is dead. not the market. the business of taking old console game concepts into the mmo space is huge. the genre that attempted to make virtual worlds is dead.

Yeh. The genre of virtual world is dead. But MMOs are NOT virtual worlds anymore. They are lobby based co-op games .. and this genre is flourishing.

These arent MMORPGs. Why you may ask? Well in your genre no one takes the time to interact with anyone else outside of grouping for the sake of action based play. Quick in and out mini games. Where as with a MMORPG time needs to be taking to develope once character and social intercation with those around you build a "community"

Your mistaking MMOs with Online FPSs.

That is just semantics.

"no one takes the time to interact with anyone else outside of grouping for the sake of action based play." .. isn't that true in WOW, DCUO, and quite a few "MMORPGs" that i played recently.

Are you saying those are not MMORPGs anymore? If so, this site should change its name. Player behavior change. Quick in and quick out combat games is the way to go for many. And many play MMOs as such. If it is my preferred fun way to play a MMO, i don't see why i should not ... particularly when MMOs are more and more friendly to this kind of play.

You are mistaken that "MMOs" stay stale and static. Its meaning is changing all the time.

(And where does this FPS thing comes from? You should be using "online action RPG" instead .. and yes, many MMOs are turning into online action RPG .. nothing wrong if that is what the market wants)

No I wouldn't consider WOW a MMO anymore. FPSs comes from your attention to quick and fast game play. Get in quick and get out fast rinse repeat. This type of game play is common place with Online FPSs such as Halo and Black Ops. And I believe it's this crowd that has "influenced" the MMO genre to change to what we have today.

The market as of late is catering to your style of game play that's for sure. The market itself is saturated with these Lobby CO-OP types. But more people then you realize are sick and tired of seeing these abominations and are clamoring for a change of the guard if you will.

"What's old is new again." Ever hear that statement before? Well if GW2 falls on its face like SWTOR did, then your time in this industry is all but over. ( We will sure as hell see within the first 3 months of launch) Were seeing a lot of sandbox types popping up as of late. EOC, AA, Dayz, War Z, The Repop, WoD and the list grows bigger every day.